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In Nigeria, the English Law provides that marriage may be celebrated in any licensed place of worship by any recognised Minister of the Church, denomination or body to which such place of worship belongs, and according to the rites or usages of marriage observed in that church, denomination, or body, provided that the marriage be celebrated with open doors between the hours of 8 o'clcck in the forenoon and 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and in the presence of two or more witnesses besides the officiating minister; and that the minister who fails to go with the requirements as provided by the Ordinance shall be liable to two or five years penal servitude.

Now let us ask ourselves the rights of marriage in House of the Lord?Is the doctrine to be found in the Bible? Were the children of Israel permitted to be celebrating marriages in the Temple?

In the New Testament we read that Jesus attended (as some have said) "adorned and beautified marriage with his presence" in Cana of Galilee. And that it was a marriage performed neither in the Temple nor in the synagogue but in the upper room of a private house.

Historians tell us: "Majority of Jewish houses were only one story high. In some houses an upper room is set apart for religious purposes; prayers are offered in it, circumcision and the rite of matrimony performed, the pass-over eaten, and the dead laid out"

"The ceremony is performed in the 'upper room' of private houses. The betrothed pair stand under a canopy, the bride being veiled, both wearing crowns, which are several times exchanged during the cere-